The new Audi A8 made its world debut at the Audi Summit in Barcelona. In its fourth generation, the flagship model again provides the benchmark for Vorsprung durch Technik – with a new design language, an innovative touchscreen operating concept and a systematically electrified drive. The Audi A8 is also the first production automobile in the world to have been developed for highly automated driving. From 2018, Audi will gradually be taking piloted driving functions such as parking pilot, garage pilot and traffic jam pilot into production. The new A8 is the first production automobile to have been developed specially for highly automated driving.
The Audi AI traffic jam pilot takes charge of driving in slow-moving traffic at up to 60 km/h on freeways and highways where a physical barrier separates the two carriageways. The system is activated using the AI button on the center console. The Audi AI remote parking pilot and the Audi AI remote garage pilot autonomously steer the A8 into and out of a parking space or a garage, while the maneuver is monitored by the driver. The driver need not be sitting in the car. The new A8 starts out in the German market with two extensively reengineered V6 turbo engines – a 3.0 TDI and a 3.0 TFSI. The diesel develops 286bhp, and the gasoline version 340bhp. Two eight-cylinder versions – a 4.0 TDI with 435bhp and a 4.0 TFSI with 460bhp – will follow slightly later. The exclusive top engine version is the W12 with a displacement of 6.0 liters.